Today we’re visiting doors from around the world. This one is in Paris and opens to a beautiful garden court.

In every country we can find beautiful doors. Some closed. Some open. Some ajar. Each one has something intriguing behind it.

We stayed in a cozy little hotel mere feet from this door located near the Seine. We could walk to Notre Dame (visited a year before the fire), the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs-Élysées. Around the corner from this door was a local market where we bought food. A block the other direction was a cafe where local Parisians sat at small tables outside, drank coffee and talked. So typical, because apartments are far to small to entertain. Paris definitely is a 10 on my travel score.

The doors below are exquisitely ornate, matching the intricate etchings on the stone column between them. They are the center entrance doors for Notre Dame. Behind these doors were (I use were sadly) immense cast iron hanging chandeliers suspended from the ceiling. A pipe organ spanned an upper wall. It’s music swirled in the rafters then fell to listening ears. The room is mammouth yet a soft voice resonated clear as crystal. We plan to go back after the church is rebuilt.

On another hemisphere is this door located in Honduras. In a small village high in the mountains where drug cartels have their way, people mostly walk barefoot, the women wear dresses, and the men carry machetes. The roads are dirt, donkeys bray and roosters crow. A single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling dimly lights a room. Life isn’t like this in their capital city where poinsettias grow ten feet tall and people enjoy night life.

The mountain people were leary of us. Our skin color, hair color, language, and manners were so different from theirs. However, the kids loved the games and the adults appreciated the medical and dental services.

Back across the Atlantic to the Middle East is this famous door located in Petra, Jordan. After a spellbinding, 3 mile walk through a sizzling hot tunnel of desert stained cliffs, we happen upon this majestic carving used in an Indiana Jones film.

The truth: no one can go inside. It is in sore repair and very dangerous. Sorry, Indiana did not go inside.

The truth: the Nabataeeans built this fortress, an ampitheater, homes, a water system–a whole city. Situated on a travel route, traders bought and sold wares here, making the Nabataeeans wealthy. The Romans wanted to add this community to their list of conquests but the cliffs hampered their endeavers.

Rather than do what the Jews did at Masada, the Nabataeeans held out as long as they could then surrendered, choosing to live under Roman rule rather than death.

I debated between the door to the windmill in Denmark, the door to the ghost castle on the Rhine, the door to the abbey in Italy, or the door in Bethelehem. All unique. All with amazing stories. Perhaps I’ll do a second post.

For now, I will choose the door in Bethlehem. This door is to the Church of the Nativity. It was intentionally built with a shorter than normal header. – No the people weren’t that much shorter during construction.

The intent is to cause all to humble themselves as they enter the church. Notice the handmade sign for tourists!